The Orphan Sky
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Set at the crossroads of Turkish, Persian and Russian cultures under the red flag of Communism in the late 1970s, The Orphan Sky reveals one woman’s struggle to reconcile her ideals with the corrupt world around her, and to decide whether to betray her country or her heart.
Leila is a young classical pianist who dreams of winning international competitions and bringing awards to her beloved country Azerbaijan. She is also a proud daughter of the Communist Party. When she receives an assignment from her communist mentor to spy on a music shop suspected of traitorous Western influences, she does it eagerly, determined to prove her worth to the Party.
But Leila didn’t anticipate the complications of meeting Tahir, the rebellious painter who owns the music shop. His jazz recordings, abstract art, and subversive political opinions crack open the veneer of the world she's been living in. Just when she begins to fall in love with both the West and Tahir, her comrades force her to make an impossible choice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leya, who grew up in the Communist Soviet Union and later defected to the United States, has written a refreshingly nuanced novel of Russia, complete with wonderful classical and jazz music influences. Fifteen-year-old Leila Badalbeili leads a privileged existence as a Youth Communist Party member in 1979 Baku, the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan. Her manipulative leader, Comrade Farhad, assigns her to spy on a music shop owned by a suspected American plant. Meantime, her redoubtable music teacher, Professor Sultan-zade, stresses that Leila's prodigious talent for playing the piano should remain her first priority. The music shop owner, Tahir Mukhtarov, denies he's a secret agent but introduces Leila to so-called decadent Western society while exposing the hypocrisy and corruption underlying her beloved Communist ideals. She falls in love with Tahir, her "Aladdin," as the safe, idyllic world of her parents crumbles away and she is forced to grow up in order to survive in "the kingdom of crooked mirrors." The author deftly captures the paranoia and isolation of Red Russia. Leya's immersive novel speaks with authenticity and should entertain fans of smart Cold War espionage fiction.
